This Vietnam-Era Warship Is the Oldest US Military Vessel Still in Operation

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 25, 9:04AM EST

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This Vietnam-Era Warship Is the Oldest US Military Vessel Still in Operation — © viper-zero / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The U.S. Navy is in the midst of designing what it will look like in 2045. A recently-released overview of the Navy’s plans noted, “We will build future platforms with modernization in mind – hardware upgradeable and software updateable at the speed of innovation.” Here are 11 new warships that will join the U.S. Navy fleet.

Not every vessel needs to be brand new, however. The oldest operating ship in the Navy is the USS Blue Ridge, an amphibious command ship that was commissioned on Nov. 14, 1970, according to the Naval Vessel Register directory of commissioned ships in the U.S.

As it stands now, the bulk of the U.S. Navy is made up primarily of the destroyer fleet, which accounts for nearly 30% of all naval vessels. The submarine fleet comes in a close second, accounting for roughly a quarter of the total strength of the force. Beyond this, an aging fleet of cruisers, followed by littoral combat ships and amphibious assault support ships, account for the rest of the Navy’s vessels. (These are the 19 ships and submarines in the U.S. naval fleet.)

Among all these ships, the USS Blue Ridge plays an incredibly important role. It is the flagship of the huge 7th Fleet, which covers America’s naval activity in the Pacific. It is expected to stay in service well into the 2030s, largely due to a stretched Navy budget.

Since it was commissioned, the USS Blue Ridge has seen combat duty, particularly during the Vietnam War.

See 24/7 Wall St.’s list of the oldest ships and submarines still operating in the U.S. Navy.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.